Huddersfield University professor Colin Bamford says drivers must pay more, not less, to tackle public transport “mess.”

AN ACADEMIC believes the cost of motoring is still not high enough despite record fuel prices.

Huddersfield University transport expert Prof Colin Bamford says congestion charges or road tolls are the only way forward.

Prof Bamford said Britain’s transport system was in a “mess” and needed a radical overhaul.

He said the only way to break the public’s love affair with their cars was to tax them more and put the money into better public transport.

“It is a controversial subject and some people will think I’m an idiot and others will say I am talking a lot of sense,” said Prof Bamford.

“People are very blinkered on the issue, particularly at the moment with fuel prices as high as they are.”

Prof Bamford said public transport was pretty poor and people often had little alternative than to use their cars.

“If you live in Scapegoat Hill, for example, and didn’t have a car you would feel isolated,” he said.

“I live along the main Wakefield Road but after 7pm there’s only one bus an hour and they finish at 10pm. It’s crazy.”

Prof Bamford added: “We have a mess in our transport market with extortionate rail prices and crazy bus fares.

“The solution would be to make a direct charge for using our vehicles.

“It was something the Blair government announced in 2005 but there was a huge public reaction and it was watered down.

“What was left is that cities now have the opportunity to introduce localised schemes.

“There was a referendum in Manchester and not surprisingly 86 per cent said no.”

Prof Bamford, who drives a diesel car but uses buses and trains as much as possible, said London’s congestion charge was a model to consider.

“In London about half the congestion charge has gone into subsidising new buses and fares, helping upgrade the underground and so on. That is a much fairer way of going about it.”

The Netherlands will introduce road charging in 2015 but they had an integrated public transport system, and the country was generally flat making it easier to get around without cars.

“We don’t have the alternative of many other European countries and the only way we can get that alternative is through a direct charge for the use of road space.

“Economists have been putting this forward for years but politically it’s a banana skin.

“If the Government wanted to introduce it they would have to sell it in a very positive way,” he said.